Shirt.Woot

Adelas wrote:
Give her a little credit for trying.
...

Him, fyi.

Hey, great call, Boots. Congrats, Kasey!

edit: Just read the rest of the comments. I didn't read it the way others did regarding a historical interpretation, but I can definitely see the validity.

I didn't have too much interest in this one. Until I read through the comments. Now heck, I am going to buy it. Sold me on it.

I think those offended by this shirt are those who go out of their way to take offense to things.

I was so into this shirt... until I got to the tentacles... tentacles creep me out... how about - say - lion paws! (next time)
[& I'm sorry I didn't get the "not politically correct" on the topic of Japan and birth defects... I was thinking more along the lines of Godzilla...]

a) The offended should never ever read any dystopian fiction, especially Paolo Bacigalupi's Wind Up Girl.

b) I'm assuming that you all are equally offended by the graphic tees - black, socialist realist, asian woman - that all the teenagers have been wearing around my campus for the last few years.

c) All those historical things mentioned were horrible and you forgot to throw in Minamata!

d) I take this as a parody of the aforementioned tees, the socialist realism suggested by the theme, the current love of dystopian fiction, and a bunch of other things.

I'm glad the folks on Woot are aware of all these instances of historical horrors. I see this shirt as a visual cautionary tale.

I don't see any offended outrage here, just a few people being unimpressed with the design.

If "Actually, the writing is gramatically wrong and there are some historical unfortunate implications about the Japanese army doing human experimentation in RL, which was not funny at all" is outrage, well, what could I say :/

Having never purchased from shirtwoot, I would appreciate any comments on the physical quality of the t-shirts irrespective of the message it conveys.

However, I am a little confused as to who should be offended by a satirical take on the dangers of human genetic experimentation.

With the ever increasing knowledge of genetics combined with the ability to directly manipulate the human genome in a reproducible way (i.e. the scientific method); the subject is topical and ripe for satire.

The assertion that this t-shirt is insensitive to those who have suffered because of genetic defects caused by radiation, toxins, or drugs really misses the mark. Different people all over the world have been harmed, both intentionally and unintentionally, by what science has wrought.

Equally absurd is the supposed connection with Japanese War crimes committed almost 70 years ago. Since it is ostensibly a Japanese woman who has been “transformed” by this experimentation, who should be offended?

This t-shirt depicts nothing more than a satire of unchecked modern genetic experimentation. The technology is new and the possibilities, both beneficial and detrimental, are unknown and therefore frightening. It is the juxtaposition of the horrible and the sublime possibilities of genomics that creates an unsettling humorous effect. At least that is what I see.

Wmbdukes, the problem is, the Imperial Japanese Army did do human experimentation in real life, on prisoners of war and regular people (including women, some of them pregnant, and children) from occupied territories rounded up by the kempeitai (that was their Gestapo equivalent, sort of). It included things like human vivisection without anaesthesia, amputation of limbs to be reattached to the other side of the body, and injecting animal substances into people just to see what would happen.

Which is rather too close to "putting tentacles in place of arms FOR SCIENCE" for some of us, who find this shirt unsettling.

So yeah, it's not just satire. It's pretty close to real life war crimes, which were the stuff of nightmares.

Mind you, I like Japan. My nickname is from Japanese, my icon is a manga character, I've already been twice there and I was planning to do a countryside tour next March/ April so I can do some cherry blossom viewing if I'm lucky, but those things the Japanese Army did during WW2 were Sick and Wrong.

I am not ignorant of the scale and the horror committed in the East during WWII. I'll leave it at that, because this is not the forum for history debate.

The point I was making is that there is no connection between a satire of modern genomics run amok, and the horrific cruelty committed by sociopaths under the guise of junk science 70 years ago.

Who exactly should be offended? Toward whom are we being insensitive?

I don't know what y'all are talking about. Turanga Leela's mom is hot.

The translation is not near as bad as the other guy made it sound.

は、行く
That phrase is a little odd but still makes plenty of sense.

将来
Shourai is just fine. Its used all the time in referring to your future.

I spent a year in Japan and am in my third year of language classes. Perfect? No. Horrible? Nope. A Japanese person would understand it perfectly.

makiwi wrote:Once again, Woot fails at Japanese. I wish they'd just stay away from the language all together.

人体実験　- human body experiments...this is ok

は　行く　- will go. Human experiments will go???

将来のために　- 'for the future'. But it's the wrong word for 'future'. The proper word would be 未来 (mirai)

It's not as bad as the marshmallow one that used the word for the flower mallow or something, but still pretty bad, unless you don't care. I suppose most people don't and think I'm being too pedantic.

And on a cultural and historical note, what struck me about it was not that it might offend Japanese people (like me) because of I don't know, atom bomb stuff (which actually did not cause birth defects and such; other industrial pollution that happened in the 1950s-70s did, as well as contaminated baby formula, etc.) Instead I thought of Japan's dark past of the Imperial Army conducting horrible human experiments during WWII in China.

So, all around this design strikes all kinds of wrong chords for me.

See my post on page 2. I'm pretty sure that the Japanese is ok. Not perfect, but ok.

kingsnake2 wrote:The translation is not near as bad as the other guy made it sound.

は、行く
That phrase is a little odd but still makes plenty of sense.

将来
Shourai is just fine. Its used all the time in referring to your future.

I spent a year in Japan and am in my third year of language classes. Perfect? No. Horrible? Nope. A Japanese person would understand it perfectly.

Well, my Japanese wife couldn't figure out what it was trying to say at first until I told her the intended translation. The middle line should actually be "を 行う" (wo okonau) = will be conducted. Either 将来 or 未来 are fine.

Greyeds wrote:Don't think it's going to be the grammar that will enrage them. I love human testing jokes and Japan in general but the combination is just a bit too close to reality to be in good taste. In world war 2, there was a unit that performed human experimentation on captives. Look up Unit 731 on wikipedia, it's all rather ghastly...

So...what? You're concerned about offending them? Since Japan refuses to apologize for the atrocities Unit 731 or various other atrocities committed, I doubt they would care about this.

First day sales: 589

Speed to First Woot: 2m 38.228s
First Sucker: incantor
Last Wooter to Woot: aki355
Last Purchase: 4 minutes ago
Order Pace (rank):
Bottom 48% of Shirt Woots
Bottom 43% of all Woots
Woots Sold: 589

First day sales 589

Thanks to Makiwi for translating! My Japanese is not good enough to read the shirt and I was curious what it said. Many thanks!

Regarding Engrish t-shirts in Japan, once people find out that something they have on their chest says something really dumb or embarassing, they tend to stop wearing it. I guess some people are saying they don't care if a shirt says something dumb in another language as long as they don't understand it themselves...or something? whatever makes you happy.

But anyway, I'm not offended or mad at the shirt. Who gets mad at a t-shirt? Just voicing my opinion. I will keep buying woot shirts to add to my already huge pile, but I'll be skipping this one. (And if woot ever does a t-shirt with Japanese on it that actually makes sense, I'll try to remember to come around and point that out too.)